76% of Health Workers are Burned Out -- How Tech Can Help Now.
By Samantha Davis Knapp BSN, RN
As staff shortages continue to impact healthcare facilities, the growing burden on each staff member and clinician ultimately leads to higher rates of burnout and lowers the overall quality of patient care. Burnout has become so high that the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued an advisory on May 23, 2022, addressing the crisis.
In the advisory, Dr. Murthy shares that “8 of 10 health workers have experienced workplace violence, 76% of health workers reported exhaustion and burnout, and 66% of nurses have considered resigning.” These numbers indicate that we will be experiencing a significant healthcare worker shortage very soon—an estimated shortage of 54,100 - 139,000 physicians alone. Indeed, a recent study shows that 25% of clinicians are considering switching careers.
That is very scary.
As a Registered Nurse and former Surgical Coordinator, I'm intimately familiar with the ever-increasing workload and stress in the hospital setting. I have witnessed colleagues struggle to keep up and know they need tools to ease their workloads. I found that trying to manage the administrative duties of a Surgical Coordinator in addition to providing quality patient care was a constant battle. Like many of my peers, I also suffered burnout, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic dragged on.
So what can hospitals do to provide some relief?
Among the solutions offered by the Surgeon General in his advisory, I agree with his suggestion to implement new human-centered technologies. Specifically, simplifying EHR-based workflows to improve worker usability and team collaboration. As a Surgical Coordinator, it was common to see poor communication among team members and questionable organization techniques (e.g, sticky notes, folders, and lists). Our team certainly had room for improvement!
This is why I joined careMESH—to work with peers across the industry to ease the burden for healthcare workers by improving care coordination among care team members. As Dr. Murthy advises, careMESH products are designed to ease workflows. SEARCH helps providers identify and locate the correct members of the patient’s care team. CONNECT improves communication between providers. And NAVIGATE helps manage inbound referrals for specialty clinics while improving care coordination. All three are focused on improving processes for healthcare workers, which ultimately is about increasing the quality of care provided to the patients.
I’d be glad to discuss your workflow challenges and how workflow improvements, alongside the right technologies, can improve referral management, care coordination, or patient management throughout the treatment process.
Please reach out anytime!